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‘There has been no damage to our building or systems, and we will conduct tests with the industry today with the aim of reopening U.S. markets on Wednesday,’ NYSE spokesman Ray Pellecchia said in a statement.

Though they would not go into specifics, a number of generators must be located onsite in order for the prospect of a Wednesday reopening to be considered, since lower Manhattan remains without power and will likely continue as such for as long as week, according to city power executives.

Deserted: The floor of the iconic building stands eerily quiet

Silent: It is the only time the Stock Exchange has closed for two days for more than a century

The closure has made several records in the history of the exchange, as Monday’s closing was the first time that the markets were formally shut since the days following the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Beyond that, it was the first time that it closed since Hurricane Gloria 27 years ago.

CNN'S BLACK EYE AFTER FALSE REPORT OF NYSE FLOODING

CNN earned itself another black eye after wrongly reporting that the New York Stock Exchange was flooded with three feet of water following the worst of Hurricane Sandy.

‘There has been no damage to our building or systems, and we will conduct tests with the industry today with the aim of reopening U.S. markets on Wednesday,’ NYSE spokesman Ray Pellecchia said in a statement.

During a live segment on Piers Morgan’s show Monday night, the anchor spoke with the network’s meteorologist who based the sensational claim solely on a comment left in a chat room.

‘You have an update on the stock exchange situation. Do we still think that three feet of water got into the exchange? There seem to be conflicting reports now,’ Morgan asked meteorologist Chad Myers.

‘Oh, is that right? You know, I got that from the National Weather Service chat bulletin board. It was right on there; it said three feet of water on the floor. I don’t know if there’s conflicting reports or not,’ Myers said.

The claim instantly went viral, spreading quickly on social networks and circulating as fact.

An NYSE official quickly tried to thwart the rumor, saying that the infrastructure of the landmark Wall Street building was ‘fine’.

A spokesman for the network issued a vague apology, purposefully avoiding the point of the fact that their sources were as murky as the alleged sea water that covered much of lower Manhattan.

‘Chad referenced a National Weather Service report that turned out to be incorrect. We quickly made an on air correction. We regret the error,’ CNN spokesman Bridget Leininger said.

When today’s closure was announced it was became first time that the NYSE was closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888.

Like much of the city, the Exchange braced for the impact of Hurricane Sandy on Sunday, lining up a sandbag barrier outside the building on iconic Wall Street.

Nasdaq officials began employing their contingency plans as soon as they came to the decision to close on Sunday around 10.30pm.

Traders were able to continue to complete a drastically-reduced level of orders electronically, as many banks have remote systems set up so that employees can work from home in crisis situations.

The New York Stock Exchange, which is a privately-held company in itself, keeps a secondary location up and running in case of emergency where all data is stored.

The problem there, however, is that the data centre is in Mahwah, New Jersey, which is dealing with potentially more structural damage than New York.

According to Wall Street and Tech, the centre boasts a supply of 28 megawatts of power, which equates to the amount used to power 4,500 residential homes.

Additionally NYSE spokesman Robert Rendine told The New York Times that they have a number of generators and sufficient fuel to power the site for at least one week if electricity does not return.

‘I’m a little surprised that the exchanges couldn’t secure the technology needed to keep the market operating,’ said Dominic Salvino, a trader from the Chicago Board Options Exchange told Bloomberg Businessweek.

‘It seems unreasonable that the nation’s financial markets have to shut down just because everyone has located themselves within five miles of each other in New Jersey. A snow storm in Chicago wouldn’t shut down trading on the East Coast.’

The ripple effects are already being seen, as companies are postponing their quarterly earnings, which were scheduled to be released earlier this week.

According to CBS News,pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and media conglomerate Thomson Reuters are two of the tardy reportees.

European markets were rocked by the storm, with Britain’s FTSE down 0.2 per cent, France’s CAC-40 down 0.8 per cent, and Germany’s DAX dropped 0.4 per cent.

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New York Stock Exchange building damaged as Superstorm Sandy takes its toll on financial heartland